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Robotech: The Movie
Robotech: The Movie, also credited as The Untold Story, was a English theatrical adaptation of the Japanese OVA Megazone 23, Part 1. It was adapted by Carl Macek into a spin-off of the Robotech series. The film was produced by Cannon Films, which demanded changes at the last minute--causing Macek to include footage from the Robotech Masters (Saga) story arc. Cast *Kerrigan Mahan as Mark Landry *Iona Morris (credited as "Britanny Harlowe") as Becky Michaels *Muriel Fargo as EVE *Gregory Snegoff (credited as "Greg Snow") as Colonel B. D. Andrews *Edie Mirman (credited as "Penny Sweet") as Kelley Stevens *Wendee Lee (credited as "Wendee Swan") as Stacy Embry *Mearle Pearson as Professor Embry *Michael McConnohie (credited as "Jeffrey Platt") as Rolf Emerson *Guy Garrett as Leonard *Abe Lasser as Robotech Master #1 *Greg Finley as Anatole Leonard *Tony Clay (credited as "Jonathan Alexander") as additional voices *Etienne Bannliett as additional voices *Frank Catalano (credited as "Wayne Anthony") as additional voices *Bill Capizzi (credited as "A. Gregory") as additional voices *Jaque Maecell as additional voices *Dave Mallow as additional voices *Ike Medlick as additional voices *Spike Niblick as additional voices *Mike Reynolds as additional voices *Bruce Winant as additional voices *Tom Wyner as additional voices Plot to be added Behind the Scenes The original premise of the film was to take place during the first generation of the original series; while the SDF-1 was returning from its fold jump to Pluto. It was to feature Mark Laundry, a relative of Rick Hunter. It's possible that the character named "Pop" in the final cut of the film was originally supposed to be Pop Hunter, Rick Hunter's father. The antagonist of the film would be named D.B. Edwards, and would be the same character as T.R. Edwards. The film would follow Mark's discovering a Robotech mecha and trying to stop D.B from taking over the world, eventually failing. The film was produced in this format, and was shipped to Canon Films to watch over. Macek would later claim he had the original cut on VHS, and would claim the the voice acting was bad, filled with grunts and groans. However, the film's producer, Cannon Films, thought that this version had "too many girls, and not enough guns". So, Carl Macek, who was in the midst of producing Robotech II: The Sentinels in Japan, was recalled back to America to retool the film. The new version of the film would now take place during the second generation, and would show the start of the Second Robotech War with the Robotech Masters. Thus, Edwards (Who would have been in space in the SDF-3 at that point) had to be changed to D.B. Andrews. When Edwards was brought back for The Sentinels, he had to be renamed "T.R. Edwards," and his hair had to be changed to blond instead of black. Despite this, the two share similar designs. Elements of the first movie still stayed, such as a mention of Alaska Base and the afore mentioned "Pop" character. This new version of the film, however, left some glaring inconsistencies with the original series. In addition, this new story required bits of the Southern Cross series to be spliced in to the original Megazone 23 material. Megazone 23 was filmed in 32mm while Southern Cross was 16mm ... the difference was more than noticable on the silver screen. The pre-production problems, and the fact that the film did not survive past it's test run, have given rise to a number of rumors. The two most formeost being that: Carl Macek hated the film, and the film did poorly at the box office during its test run. However, an interview with Carl Macek on the Anime New Network has proven both rumors to be untrue. While, Macek never held any interest in releasing the film in a home video context himself, he had no particular disdain for the film. The film premiered along two other notable movies of the time: James Cameron's Aliens and Roman Polanski's Pirates. Robotech the Movie did respectively well against Aliens and "beat the hell out of Pirates". The problem was that Cannon thought Robotech the Movie as a "kids' film". And when the demographics came back about a month after the test run, they saw that most of the audience was adults. This posed a problem, as Cannon had purchased advertising time only during child oriented programming. It was at this time that Cannon decided to pull the film until it could be properly retooled yet again. Unfortunately, before any further work could be done on the film, the bottom dropped out of Cannon Films and Robotech the Movie only saw wide release in foreign (non-American) markets. External Links *http://www.robotech.patlabor.info/production.htm *http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/anncast/2010-01-14 Category:Films